MOBILE, Alabama -- A federal judge in Mobile last week denied Theodore nursery farmer Bill Atkinson’s request for a new trial on charges that he tried to obstruct an investigation into child molestation by his oldest son.

A jury found Atkinson guilty last month of instructing two of his other sons to destroy a digital video recorder hard drive that contained video of William James "Will" Atkinson IV molesting children at a family-run orphanage in Honduras.

Atkinson’s lawyers challenged the constitutionality of the law the prosecutors charged him under, arguing that it fails to show a U.S. government interest in a contemplated investigation in Honduras against Honduran citizens. The law also is unconstitutional, the attorneys argued, because it does not require prosecutors to prove that the destroyed DVR is material to the investigation.

Atkinson’s lawyers also argued that prosecutors failed to prove that the "hypothetical jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security" was applicable in this case since there was no proof that Will Atkinson was still a U.S. citizen.

U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose rejected each argument. She wrote that the government was not required to prove an actual violation of a federal statute in order to show that the investigation was within its jurisdiction.

"The Court finds that the Government presented sufficient evidence at trial that an investigation was foreseeable to Atkinson at the time the DVR was destroyed," she wrote. "The government did not have to prove that it was a federal investigation that was foreseeable."

DuBose also rejected arguments that she erred in instructions she gave the jury before deliberations.